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From the Maine shoreline to the Florida Keys, and from the Northwest's inland waters to Baja, California, this collection of oils and watercolours includes views of New England's rocky shores and sandy beaches, Chesapeake Bay, South Carolina's Low Country, the rugged Oregon Coast (where Lewis and Clark first sighted the Pacific Ocean), the spirit of sailing across San Francisco Bay, and the expanse of Big Sur.

With the support of the Kennedy family, best-selling National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Robert D. Ballard embarks on the search for PT-109, the boat made famous by commander John F. Kennedy's heroic rescue efforts following a harrowing collision with a Japanese destroyer in WWII. The companion to a major National Geographic Explorer television documentary Forty years after his death and 60 years after his first collision with history four miles off the island of Gizo in the South Pacific, John F. Kennedy and his story still inspires readers. JFK's heroic efforts to save his 11-man PT 109 (personal torpedo boat) crew including - swimming close to 80 miles over a period of six days through Japanese- and shark-infested waters, at one point even towing an injured crewman by a rope in his teeth for a two-mile swim- come to life interwoven through a comprehensive history of PT boats and the World War II campaign in the Solomon Islands. Collision with History combines first person presence on Ballard's search expedition for the wreckage, survivor accounts, and Kennedy family members' recollections to introduce the reader to the young war hero who would later become president. Covering subjects such as modern exploration, World War II, and personal heroism, Ballard weaves a tale that spans 60 years.

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Using a new system of underwater exploration technology, the author and his team have located the Bismarck off the Atlantic coast of France. In a first person account of his work, the author recounts the history of the German warship. The author's previous books include "Exploring the Titanic".

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As Woods Hole oceanographer Robert Ballard demonstrates in his absorbing, profusely illustrated book about his years-long hunt for the wreck of the Titanic, science isn't all that different from Hollywood. Just as a Hollywood type--say, the director whose quest to make the world's most expensive film is chronicled in Paula Parisi's Titanic and the Making of James Cameron--must use the cachet of his studio connections to raise cash, a Woods Hole scientist must use that eminent institution's reputation to win financing for his or her projects. Like the movie that sprang from the finding of the wreck, Ballard's scientific exploration is a tale of triumph against long odds. He's also got some good historical data on the drama of the sinking. Here are a few ear-witness accounts of the moment of the iceberg's impact on the Titanic: "A disquieting ripping sound like a piece of cloth"; "A thousand marbles"; "As though somebody had drawn a giant finger along the side of the ship." Ballard quotes the most precise description of the fatal instant, given by colorful Second Officer Lightoller: "Not that it was by any means a violent concussion, but just a distinct and unpleasant break in the monotony of her motion." Ballard's book helps you get the feeling of climbing aboard and being there for that distinctly unpleasant moment. --Tim Appelo

An updated edition, with 8 new pages of material, of the 1987 title which recounts the author's discovery and exploration of the Titanic 75 years after it sank in the North Atlantic. Dr Robert Ballard is an oceanographer who has worked on over 50 deep sea expeditions.

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Until a few decades ago, the ocean depths were almost as mysterious and inaccessible as outer space. Oceans cover two-thirds of the earth's surface with an average depth of more than two miles--yet humans had never ventured more than a few hundred feet below the waves. One of the great scientific and archaeological feats of our time has been finally to cast light on the "eternal darkness" of the deep sea. This is the story of that achievement, told by the man who has done more than any other to make it possible: Robert Ballard.

Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic. He led the teams that discovered hydrothermal vents and "black smokers"--cracks in the ocean floor where springs of superheated water support some of the strangest life-forms on the planet. He was a diver on the team that explored the mid-Atlantic ridge for the first time, confirming the theory of plate tectonics. Today, using a nuclear submarine from the U.S. Navy, he's exploring the ancient trade routes of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for the remains of historic vessels and their cargo. In this book, he combines science, history, spectacular illustrations, and first-hand stories from his own expeditions in a uniquely personal account of how twentieth-century explorers have pushed back the frontiers of technology to take us into the midst of a world we could once only guess at.

Ballard begins in 1930 with William Beebe and Otis Barton, pioneers of the ocean depths who made the world's first deep-sea dives in a cramped steel sphere. He introduces us to Auguste and Jacques Piccard, whose "Bathyscaph"descended in 1960 to the lowest point on the ocean floor. He reviews the celebrated advances made by Jacques Cousteau. He describes his own major discoveries--from sea-floor spreading to black smokers--as well as his technical breakthroughs, including the development of remote-operated underwater vehicles and the revolutionary search techniques that led to the discovery and exploration of the Titanic, the Nazi battleship Bismarck, ancient trading vessels, and other great ships.

Readers will come away with a richer understanding of history, earth science, biology, and marine technology--and a new appreciation for the remarkable men and women who have explored some of the most remote and fascinating places on the planet.

An expert in marine geology and underwater adventurer recounts his greatest discoveries, including the canyons and plateaus of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the wreck of the Bismarck, the lost ships of Guadalcanal, and the remains of the Titanic.

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Large Hardcover by Robert Ballard, Discoverer of the Titanic. A Time Quest Book, size: approx. 11 1/2" x 8 3/4" with 64 pages. Packed with stunning paintings and photographs of the Bismarck in 1941 and as she looks today, plus fascinating full-color maps and diagrams. - The lights from Ballard's underwater camera sled Argo shone down on the sunken battleship. It's guns pointed crazily upward as if still ready to fire. Huge shell holes gaped in her wooden decks, and eerie giant swastikas glimmered through the darkness. Nearby stood an open doorway...the same door that Hiltler had walked though nearly half a century before. - Tells the thrilling story of the life and death of this famous ship through the eyes of four young German sailors who actually sailed on her-and survived the sinking. We then experience Ballard's suspenseful search and dramatic discovery of the Bismarck with Argo, the same underwater vehicle that discovered the Titanic four years before.

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The author of the best-selling The Discovery of the Titanic explores the controversies surrounding the sinking of the cruise ship in 1915, in a large-format gift book featuring more than three hundred photographs and illustrations. National ad/promo.

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For the first time, the complete story of the sinking and discovery of the "Titanic" is available to young readers, written by the author of the bestseller "The Discovery of the Titanic". "Captures the drama of both the night of the sinking as well as . . . the discovery of the great ship. . . . Stunning".--"School Library Journal", starred review. Full-color illustrations.

For the first time, the complete story of the sinking and discovery of the "Titanic" is available to young readers, written by the author of the bestseller "The Discovery of the Titanic". "Captures the drama of both the night of the sinking as well as . . . the discovery of the great ship. . . . Stunning".--"School Library Journal", starred review. Full-color illustrations.

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Graveyards of the Pacific offers exactly what readers expect from National Geographic: A beautiful book full of outstanding photos and graphics. It is worth reading (bestselling historian Stephen E. Ambrose writes the introduction), but even better to look at. Coauthor Robert D. Ballard, of course, is the explorer best known for discovering the Titanic on the Atlantic seabed. As the title suggests, Graveyards of the Pacific focuses on the Second World War. It includes fewer underwater photos than what one might expect from a book coauthored by Ballard--no more than a dozen or so. But each is well selected: A Japanese torpedo lying on the floor of Pearl Harbor, planes encrusted by decades of marine growth, the mast of an aircraft transport surrounded by fish and covered with seaweed--in the shape of a cross, it looks "like an underwater shrine"--and vessels sunk during the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests. Most of the photographs and other illustrations (there are more than 150 in total) are contemporary pictures taken during the war, from a blurry image of Japanese battleships heading toward Pearl Harbor before the sneak attack to a sequential series of photos showing a kamikaze plane approaching an American aircraft carrier, and then smashing into it. The text of the book moves back and forth between historical descriptions of the naval war and accounts of how Ballard found many of the ships lost during the fighting. His most significant discovery in the Pacific was probably the U.S.S. Yorktown, destroyed during the battle of Midway in 1942 and now resting 17,000 feet below the waves. The description of its dark, final resting place is eerie: It "looks like a huge craft dropped down from space, shorn of many of the antenna and cables and protrusions that had once made her serviceable, but now reduced to her core, which is still massive and formidable. ...[A] huge sunken sea-beast from another time, a steel dinosaur out of another era, when deluded men still thought they could conquer the world." As Graveyards of the Pacific proves once again, we are fortunate to have Ballard embarking on an altogether different kind of conquest. --John Miller

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Riding the wave of ocean liner nostalgia, Lost Liners presents the most comprehensive and spectacular volume ever--a guided tour encompassing the beginnings, heyday, and eventual decline of the great Atlantic express liners. Ken Marschall's lavish paintings depict the ships in their shining prime as well as in their eerily poignant underwater repose.

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A chronicle of the search for the ships sunk during the Battle of Guadalcanal integrates a first-person narrative of the expedition with photographs of ships from both sides lost in the battle. TV tie-in. 150,000 first printing. $150,000 ad/promo. Tour.

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In the summer of 1988 Robert Ballard and his team discovered the remains of an ancient Roman ship in the deep Mediterranean. In 1989 they returned to explore the shipwreck site with a high-tech underwater robot called Jason, which was equipped with lights and cameras. This book tells of the discovery of the ship, puts it in its historical context in the 4th century AD and describes it's rediscovery in 1989 and the explorations of the wreck that ensued. Anna Marguerite McCann is the archaeological and historical consultant on the book.

In a beautiful volume featuring more than 170 maps and photographs, Mystery of the Ancient Seafarers follows the latest pursuits of National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Robert D. Ballard as he searches for clues to the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. An immediate tie-in with the 2004 PBS special, Ballard's excavation focuses primarily on the story of the Phoenicianstraders who ruled Mediterranean commerce for 1,000 years, then disappeared.

A showcase of National Geographic's greatest strengthsexploration, discovery, and intricate mapsMystery of the Ancient Seafarers is a fascinating journey through the depths of the Mediterranean and centuries of time.

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On the morning of June 7, 1942, six months to the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Yorktown "turned over on her port side and sank in about 3,000 fathoms of water with all battle flags flying." Many of her men watched from the decks of the Vireo, the Benham, the Hughes, and the Hammann, weeping as the Old Lady went down. The Battle of Midway was finally over. Though the Yorktown was lost, the battle was won--what John Keegan has called "as great a reversal of strategic fortune as the naval world has ever seen." From that point on, the Japanese remained primarily on the defensive at sea.

On the morning of May 19, 1998, Robert D. Ballard stared into a video monitor hoping for a glimpse of metal on the bottom of the sea. "Thar she blows! Bingo!" After almost three weeks out, painstakingly scanning the ocean floor with high-altitude sonar, and many months of research and planning, Ballard and his crew had spotted the Yorktown some three miles down. The wreck was in remarkably good condition: "It was as if we had stumbled on the ship a few minutes after it made its death plunge."

In Return to Midway, Ballard weaves a compelling narrative, blending the story of the famous battle with his battle to find the sunken ships--the Yorktown and the USS Hammann, as well as four Japanese aircraft carriers. First-hand accounts by the men who were there, including two Japanese and two American servicemen who joined Ballard and his crew for the hunt, as well as paintings and archival photographs, detail the battle in all its horror, while capturing the honor of the men who fought on both sides. Military-history buffs will find this book--the first in decades specifically about the Battle of Midway--especially valuable, though fans of Ballard's work as an oceanographer will be equally captivated. --Sunny Delaney

Almost twenty years after making the world's most famous underwater discovery, Robert Ballard returns to Titanic with hi-tech cameras and robots to provide the clearest, most dramatic images ever seen. Ballard documents what has become of the world's best-known ship, torn apart by salvagers over the last 2 decades, and pronounces a new and vital conservation ethos - that future such wrecks must be preserved as historical monuments. This compelling, illustrated book is a journey back in time to the tragic sinking of the Titanic in 1912; a hard look at the present salvaging and natural deterioration of the wreck; and a blueprint for future conservation of this icon. Says Ballard, "every possible book has been written on the Titanic, and Titanic addicts have them all. They will not have this." RETURN TO TITANIC brings new dimension, visually and factually. First, the incomparable hi-tech cameras Ballard created to document wrecks on the Mediterranean seafloor in summer 2003 will be used to reveal the changes in Titanic since the first images were made by National Geographic in 1985. Second, he will analyze the salvaging of the wreck by private groups, as well as the natural deterioration since 1985; finally he will establish the global conservation ethos that this and other wrecks be revered as "pyramids of the deep," rather than ransacked. TITANIC has 5 chapters in 192 pages, with 125 images, diagrams, and maps. Images will include period pictures and drawings from the early 1900s, pictures of the 1985 discovery of the wreck, and modern images, culminating in the hi-tech images of the June 2004 expedition. Sweeney's deft hand combines with Ballard's own intriguing story of discovery, his masterminding of robots and hi-definition cameras to document the wreck, and his commitment to conservation in the 21st century. The human element plays a big part in RETURN TO TITANIC, as Ballard and Sweeney clarify that technology and conservation are but means to preserving the spirits of the humans lost in the tragedy. Sidebars throughout, identify the artifacts of survivors, such as letters, watches, clothing, and tell their stories.

The tragedy of the Titanic has been captured in fiction, non-fiction, music, poetry, cartoons, official judicial inquiry, survivors' recollections, still photography, television shows, and film; all of the above are covered to some extent in this good and popular book. But few Titanic books match the paintings by Ken Marschall, a specialist on the subject whose work can be found in other books by the ship's discoverer, Robert Ballard, who wrote the introduction here. The photos are notable--including shots of the red-paint-stained iceberg that may have caused the sinking, the pristine ship, the sunken wreck, the people involved in the case--but Marschall's dozens of large-scale paintings really do help to dramatize and explicate moments no camera glimpsed and few eyewitnesses agree upon.

There is much to recommend the text, too. You could make a film just about Second Officer Charles Lightoller, who helped accelerate the lifeboat-launching process, saving lives; stepped off the ship's bridge into the Atlantic; was sucked down into a ventilator taking in water, vainly swimming against its suction; and then got expelled by a blast of air, like a human cannonball in a circus, and landed next to a lifeboat that had been knocked 20 feet clear of the sinking ship's deadly whirlpool by a huge ship's funnel that crashed into the waves nearby. Lightoller was marvellously clever in his courtroom interrogation by a lawyer determined to manoeuvre him into admitting blame for the disaster. There is much more history in-between the dramatic illustrations, facts both grand and trivial--if you're bent on knowing what actually happened to the dogs aboard, the answer is in this book. Definitely one of the better titles dealing with Titanic. --Tim Appelo

When the volcano Tambora erupted in Indonesia in 1815, as many as 100,000 people perished as a result of the blast and an ensuing famine caused by the destruction of rice fields on Sumbawa and neighboring islands. Gases and dust particles ejected into the atmosphere changed weather patterns around the world, resulting in the infamous ''year without a summer'' in North America, food riots in Europe, and a widespread cholera epidemic. And the gloomy weather inspired Mary Shelley to write the gothic novel Frankenstein.

This book tells the story of nine such epic volcanic events, explaining the related geology for the general reader and exploring the myriad ways in which the earth's volcanism has affected human history. Zeilinga de Boer and Sanders describe in depth how volcanic activity has had long-lasting effects on societies, cultures, and the environment. After introducing the origins and mechanisms of volcanism, the authors draw on ancient as well as modern accounts--from folklore to poetry and from philosophy to literature. Beginning with the Bronze Age eruption that caused the demise of Minoan Crete, the book tells the human and geological stories of eruptions of such volcanoes as Vesuvius, Krakatau, Mount Pelée, and Tristan da Cunha. Along the way, it shows how volcanism shaped religion in Hawaii, permeated Icelandic mythology and literature, caused widespread population migrations, and spurred scientific discovery.

From the prodigious eruption of Thera more than 3,600 years ago to the relative burp of Mount St. Helens in 1980, the results of volcanism attest to the enduring connections between geology and human destiny.

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This simple, lively diary tells the story of the Titanic, its tragic voyage, and Ballard's triumphant discovery of the wreck 73 years later. Life-like, full-color illustrations and amazing photographs enhance the text.